Annie Clavel Explores Human History in Vivid Color

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Annie Clavel Explores Human History in Vivid Color by Genie Davis

Human History, Annie Clavel’s lustrous new exhibition opening Saturday June 14th at LAAA Gallery 825, is the story of humanity and the restless and relentless human drive to explore the unknown and overcome adversity. The exhibition takes note of the fact that human beings venture beyond their homelands to search for a better life and sustenence, something that has been true since early man formed tribes all the way up to today’s migrations.

Her visionary approach explores how these global shifts and movements shape and reshape our world over time, transforming it. Examining this impact is a celebration: of the courage necessary to face the unknown and the spirit of hope that moves humanity ever forward. It is a positive and beautiful message that is especially resonant in the current political climate.

According to the artist, “This exhibition is a consideration on migrations over time, on the movement of populations, whether voluntary or forced, and on the dynamics of history.  For a long time, the source of my inspiration has been my interest in cosmology, astronomy, the infinitely small and the infinitely large. However, the events that I paid attention to and that furnished my reflections were not visible in my painting: population movements, effects of natural disasters on humanity, consequences of famines and wars.”

Clavel adds “In my immediate surroundings, I have seen the increase in poverty in the U.S. [which fuels migration]. In addition, I like to think about the different countries from which I come or in which I have lived: my father’s Indochina (Vietnam); my mother’s France, and also  Germany, Tunisia and the United States.”

She notes that “The history of recent decades has also led me to read numerous articles and books on migration. A book deepened my thinking on the history of migrations [was] The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan. The book was described by Vanity Fair magazines as “an exhilarating companion for the journey along the routes which conveyed silk, slaves, ideas, religion, and disease, and around which today may hang the destiny of the world.”

To create her exhibition at Gallery 825, Clavel started on a series of small paintings, beginning with the representation of currents and water in nature, in an abstract way. Then the idea of perpetual migrations inspired me and a whole series of paintings with silhouettes of migrants was born.”

She notes that she wanted to integrate a third dimension to the art for this exhibition by building small sculptures. “This gave me the opportunity to emphasize the permanence of migrations in space and time. I cut long strips from large watercolors on Yupo. I had initially imagined assembling Moebius strips. They have neither front nor back, and you can imagine walking indefinitely on one of them without seeing the end.”

Clavel says that her initial idea needed to evolve, in part because of “the difficulty of gluing the two ends of the strip together without the joint being visible. The sculptures became convolutions of strips springing from a wooden base. To demonstrate the historical connection, I named each sculpture with mythical place names.”

She views this new body of work as both a continuation from and a departure from her past work. “My previous paintings have often expressed movement… Look at the titles of several of them, ‘Rip Current,’  ‘Tsunami,’ and ‘Turbulence.'”

As an artist, Clavel relates that she has always wanted to incorporate human forms into her abstract paintings, and while this is not exactly what she has done in this series, the new work represents a step in her process, one she views as being “neither realistic nor objective,” while expressing her intention that she may introduce the human figure in her next series. Instead, here, she points out “we can see silhouettes, even large groups of human beings. They run to avoid floods, they jump to escape a catastrophe, they are forced to flee without knowing where to go.”

She says that her palette is chosen before she starts painting, and like much of her work, it is based on her own feelings and artistic impulse. “I don’t think about the composition in advance, I just think about how I feel. In this series, I started with blue and green, painting wide open spaces and river currents. I added bird migrations to a few paintings, then began adding migratory flows of human creatures. For the sculptures, I used the same palette as [that in] my paintings.”

Come see the new series of Clavel’s lucious work Human History at Gallery 825 at 825 N La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, running from June 14 to July 11th. The opening reception will be held on the 14th from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.

Note that Clavel also has work in these two exhibitions:
Summer Salon
juried by Baha H. Danesh
June 7 – July 12, 2025  at Artshare LA in DTLA

and

A Woman Perspective
organized by the Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art (SCWCA)
June 22 – July 19, 2025; opening reception June 22, 1-4 p.m.
Long Beach Creative Center, 2221 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by artist

From Entrepreneur to Artist: Visceral Work from Andrew Max Modlin

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From Entrepreneur to Artist: Visceral Work from Andrew Max Modlin – Genie Davis

Andrew Max Modlin has made quite a journey from visionary entrepreneurship to full-time artist. His road may have been a bit circuitous, but he’s made a return to his first passion.

“Design, branding, and cannabis took up around 15 years of my life, so when I was in- between projects for the first time during COVID, I decided I was going to give myself a one-year break to see what I wanted to do next. The fact that I wasn’t painting haunted me all those years because I always felt like that was my life calling,” he explains. “While I got to hone my design skills, painting was the skill that I had developed and practiced up until I went into business, and now that skill, partially, was being wasted.”

After moving to Amsterdam, he developed the technique of drawing digitally on his iPad, and shortly thereafter decided to paint in the same style as his drawings. His studio work upon his return to Los Angeles has “focused on how I could translate my digital sketches to the canvas.”

With art once again Modlin’s calling, he works in vivid color that evokes places he has seen and been. “I like to think about a place’s palette while I’m in it. Each location has its own unique set of colors shaped by the season, the light, and the energy of the place itself. I’m always thinking about how I can interact with those colors through something familiar, like a landscape,” he relates, “If you paint a tree green, no one thinks twice. But paint it pink, and suddenly people are interested.”

Widely traveled, Modlin views Amsterdam as a future home, but among other locales, he loves Thailand and the uniqueness of Tibet. About the latter location, he notes “It’s fascinating to experience a place that hasn’t been fully westernized, and just getting there and around is its own kind of adventure.”

Describing his work as “extremely tactile,” he notes that while his subjects are rooted in place, “It’s more about the paint and the act of painting itself than the subject matter. While I do aim to arrange shapes in a way that feels balanced or compelling, the real interest lies in the paint: the texture, the layers, the movement.”

Currently residing and painting in West Hollywood, Modlin is opening a pop-up solo exhibition, Through the Brush, next Saturday, June 7th. Curated by Peter Frank, the show presents Modlin’s large-scale paintings and dreamlike landscapes depicting a wide range of locations from his travels to Iceland, Hawaii, Punta Mita, and Amsterdam.

He describes his work here as “a convergence…this work feels like it unlocks everything I’ve been building toward over the last 30 years. When I was first making art during and right after school it was all about color and layering. Then I spent over a decade focused on graphic design and architecture. These paintings feel like a full-circle moment, combining all that experience into something cohesive and personal.”

Modlin reveals that while his work leads through a variety of terrains, the images are “a dialogue between hand, surface, and time. I weave in fragments of my past life in design to make graphic forms, grids, and sharp contrasts only to disrupt them with unruly textures, neon pulses, and gestural mark making.”

Intimate and alive, the wildly beautiful and evocative work is a plunge into the unknown beauty of memory and place, of location and love for the natural world. It’s a look into soul of place and most of all the place of personal longing within, as well as a way for the artist to explore his own relationship to art and the world itself.

“Through the Brush” opens at 411 N. La Cienega in West Hollywood, running June 7-21, with artist’s reception June 7th, 4-9 p.m. The show will be open Wednesday-Saturday noon to 5 through the 21st, when a closing reception will be held from 4-9 p.m.

  • Genie Davis; images provided by the artist

New Dazzler at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

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New Dazzler at Tany Bondakdar Gallery – Genie Davis

Sandra Cinto’s Prelude to the Sun, at Tanya Bonakdar, on exhibit through July 2nd,  is golden, literally and figuratively. The artist has restructured the gallery walls themselves to glow with a site-specific golden installation, a large-scale curved wall drawing.

Also on display are a series of tondo and oval-shaped canvases that shift from blue to gold in an exploration of the day’s cycle from dawn til dusk.

These are visually stunning works that use the sun as an inspirational element and to reveal the passage of time. Stars, waves, cliffs, bridges, and swings, are among the delicately rendered subjects presented. It’s a gorgeous show, and one that should be soaked in just as you’d sit on the beach or in a park and enjoy a little sunshine. Meditative yet energetic, this is a stellar exhibition made to be seen live.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis

 

 

Desert X Marks the Art Spot

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Desert X Marks the Art Spot  – by Genie Davis

Through May 11th, don’t miss the 5th iteration of Desert X, in of course, the desert – Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, and Desert Hot Springs are among the locations this year.  This is one of the strongest and most successful editions of the exhibition, whose purpose is to create and present international contemporar art that fits the desert sites in which its located. We saw each of the works over a leisurely two day visit.

Let’s start where we did, with Agnes Denes jubilant, flower filled work at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage. The Living Pyramid is both an artwork and an environmental intervention, per Desert X – under any category, it’s a deeply touching piece that reveals the fragility and promise of life in the desert.

Completely different and located in the raw desert piece is Muhannad Shono’s viscerally haunting What Remains. The fabric works evoke windswept sails on long dried seas.

Sarah Meyohas’ Truth Arrives in Slanted Beams is a pristine vision that unfolds like a bright white ribbon. Her immersive installation creates significant word patterns using  “caustics,” light patterns formed by the refraction or reflection of light through curved surfaces. What a dynamite piece.

Ronald Rael’s Adobe Oasis in Palm Desert is just that, a maze that also serves as a place of rest and succor from the sun.

Out on Highway 111, off Tramway Road, in Palm Springs, Kapwani Kiwanga’s Plotting Rest is beautifully matched in setting and offers different encompassing views of art and scenery from every angle.

Sanford Biggers’ work sparkles as it brings the sky, or at least its clouds, closer to earth. Beautiful from all angles, Unsui (Mirror) shines.

Possibly my favorite in a field of favorites this year (or a desert’s worth, perhaps) is Kimsooja’s To Breathe, a dancing, light-filled walk through prism that changes with the direction of the sun. We visited at noon, when the piece gave off rainbows.

While G.H.O.S.T Ride moves about, when we saw it, the Mad-Max-like work by Cannupa Hanska Luger was just up the hill from Kimsooja’s piece. Delightful and imaginative with an audio component, the location was a tough climb on a hot day, let’s hope it’s easier to view in these warmer final weekends.

Alison Saar brings heart and soul to a terrific and interactive Soul Station in Desert Hot Springs. From a fully realized gas station interior, to signs with mantras for peaceful living, and a gas pump with a seashell silver handle that offers beautiful poetic messages to listeners, this art is fully alive.

Also in Desert Hot Springs, Jose Davila offers monoliths reminscent of Stone Henge – if Stone Henge was made today and spoke to the movement of immigration as does The act of being together.